January 2025

Updates & Announcements

It’s official! We have a website, and we are LIVE! Yay!

I’m super excited to share The Black Community Guide website with you all. It’s been such a journey going from a list on my Note app on my phone, to a Word Doc, to a Google Doc, and finally to this website. Although it wasn’t my original goal to build something so comprehensive to share with the world, I’m so proud of the outcome!

I want to send a big thanks to my husband and some special love to my little one for being the inspiration for this work (and whom I dedicate this guide to) for their patience and support while I’ve put so much time, attention, and effort into this project. My hope is that this work that was initially meant to support our family will have far reaching benefits for all Black Oregonians and beyond.

I also want to give a shoutout to a few key folks who have supported this vision, and me from the onset. Thank you to Joy Alise Davis, Allister Byrd, Darrell Wade, and Tiffany Lethabo King. All of you have encouraged this dream of mine and found tangible ways to support transforming it into something very real. I appreciate all of you very much. Also, thank you to the countless number of folks who’ve reached out to send messages of encouragement and gratitude for the Google Doc (its original public format). Your words warmed my heart and have added to the joy I feel in doing this good work.

Lastly, here are a few key points regarding this site:

  • A Living Work: Please note that this site is a living work—I will be regularly updating this website. Thank you to everyone who has already sent in suggestions. For those suggestions that align with the mission of this Guide, they have been added to the respective tabs. Please use the Contact form to send me a note if you’d like to suggest a submission or an edit, or if you’d like to report errors.

  • Location: All organizations, programs/activities, and resources are located within the PDX-Metro area unless otherwise noted (in Red).

  • Searching for Specifics: If you would like to search for a specific resource or organization, please hit Ctrl + F and type in what you are looking for. This will populate a list of items found on this website according to your search criteria.

  • The Google Doc version: I will leave the Google Doc version of The Guide up for a month or so and will direct folks here (ongoing). If you need a PDF version of the Guide (printable) you can find it here or on The Guide tab.

May this work be a contribution to the Liberation of Black folks in Oregon, the US, and globally. There is more to come, stay tuned.

Thank you/Mvto (thank you in Mvskoke),

Amber

Featured Resource/Organization

For our inaugural feature, I’d like to highlight the work of Imagine Black (full disclosure, I’m on their 501c4 Board).

Imagine Black’s mission is to helps our Black community imagine the alternatives we deserve and build our political participation and leadership to achieve those alternatives.

They envision a world where people of African descent enjoy the rights, resources, and recognition to be a thriving, resilient, and connected community.

They operate from a Black Queer Feminist (BQF) lens which offers a holistic understanding of our conditions and connectedness as Black people. As a result, they understand that liberation for all Black people can only be realized by lifting up the voices, experiences and prioritizing the issues of historically silenced and vulnerable groups within Black communities – specifically, queer, trans and GNC, femme, poor, disabled, working, and undocumented people (adapted from BYP100).

Ultimately, Imagine Black believes that there are as many ways of being Black as there are Black people, but the experience of Black unites us.

Their work includes:

Check out Imagine Black for more information. Also, they can be found in this Guide under the “Political, Civic, Social & Economic Advocacy” tab.